by Karen Young
“Tell me,” Buck muttered.
“What the hell were you thinking driving that automobile at top speed with your wife beside you and your seat belt off?”
“It was stupid. I was speeding. I admit it. Then that deer just materialized out of nowhere. I acted on pure instinct to avoid it.”
He cut Buck off with a disgusted snort. “Excuses. I don’t hear a reason for anything I mentioned.” His bushy eyebrows beetled with the force of his frown. “I don’t know what’s goin’ on with you and your wife, but after this caper, I’m surprised the woman isn’t ready to walk away from you. I’m assuming that’s part of the personal issues you mentioned, so I’m not ordering you to stay put here in the hospital. Been my experience that a man handling marital problems is almost as useless as tits on a boar hog. You get out on the mound, you need your head clear. You see where I’m coming from, Buck?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll leave you to think it over…that is, if that stuff they’ve given you for pain hasn’t turned your brain to mush.” He turned on his heel without waiting for a reply and stalked to the door. Then, just before pulling it open, he turned back. “I’m heading up to see Anne right now. I’ve always considered you a lucky man having a woman like that for a wife. You screw that up, you’re more than a fool.”
Which pretty much summed up what Buck thought of himself. When Schrader was gone, he closed his eyes with a tired sigh and welcomed the oblivion of the narcotic.
Anne waited until the sound of the Fredericks’ SUV faded away before sitting up and tossing aside the soft throw that Marcie had thoughtfully tucked about her. The bedroom she shared with Buck was beautiful, a tasteful blend of buttery yellows with touches here and there of red and brown. The art on the walls was original, carefully chosen. The furniture was top-of-the-line. And why not? When they’d built the house, money had been no object and she’d taken a lot of pleasure in decorating it. Unfortunately, it would not echo with the sound of tiny feet, nor would she rock her baby in the chair she’d bought a month ago and secretly stowed away from Buck in the attic.
Her baby. Before she was engulfed in anguish, she went to the sumptuous walk-in closet and took down a piece of luggage. At the chest of drawers built in on her side, she began removing what she’d need for the foreseeable future—bras, panties, socks, T-shirts, pajamas. After packing them, she went back to the closet and chose a few pairs of pants and jeans, some tops, blouses, a running suit. It was too chilly right now for shorts.
Coming out of the closet she lifted her head to see Buck propped in the doorway on his crutches. He looked at the half-packed suitcase and then back at her with a ferocious frown. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be in bed.”
“I’m leaving. And you’re supposed to be off that knee.” She dropped the clothes on the bed and began folding them.
“C’mon, Anne. This is no way to deal with our situation.”
“It’s the way I choose,” she told him. Her hands were shaking, so she kept them moving, folding, placing this piece and that in the suitcase, reaching for the next one. “However you deal with it is up to you.”
He was at the bed now, trying to get a look at her face. “I’ve said I’m sorry for the way I acted…about the baby and the accident. I mean it, I’m sorry. But it was…hell, I guess I was in a state of shock or something, Anne. For you to just quit taking the Pill…I never expected you to do something like that.”
Moving back to the closet, she picked up a pair of running shoes and came out with the shoes in one hand and another smaller carryall in the other. “I never thought I’d do something like that either,” she said, “but I did.”
“And you think what you did is justified because you wanted a baby?”
She stopped in the act of stuffing the shoes in the bag and looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m going to tell you this one more time, Buck, and if you don’t get it, then it’s plain that the differences in the way we think are so major that we really won’t be able to get beyond it.”
She briefly closed her eyes to gather her thoughts before laying it on the line. “My ovaries are thirty-four years old, which means I’m already past peak childbearing years. I simply couldn’t wait any longer for you to change your mind about having a family. I convinced myself that once you knew I was carrying our child, you’d be as thrilled as I was and your objections would just fade away. Okay, that was dumb. I was wrong about that. It was a serious betrayal of trust and I sincerely apologize.” She gave him a weak smile. “Serious mistakes require serious thinking and I need to be away from you to do it.”
With a bleak look, he watched her throw more stuff in the suitcase. “You blame me for the accident and bringing on the miscarriage, don’t you?”
She paused with a makeup bag in her hand. “Yes, I guess so,” she said slowly. “I wish you’d left when I begged you to.”
“I’ll make it up to you, Anne, I swear I will.”
“Just…leave it, Buck. Don’t go there right now. I need to be away from you for a while.” She closed the suitcase and began zipping it up. “I need to decide whether there’s anything left of our marriage worth saving.”
Seeing he was about to argue, she stopped him by raising a hand. “Please, don’t say any more. It’s not only our differences about whether we should have a baby, Buck. We have differences about the way we live our lives. I’m uncomfortable living in a fishbowl, you know that. I’ve said it enough. But I accepted it for the joy of one day having your babies. That’s something else that went with this miscarriage. I’m not so sure I’m willing to compromise about that anymore.”
“Jesus, are you saying you’re through? You want a divorce?”
“I’m not sure what I want right now. I am sure that I need some time to sort out my thoughts. So I’m going to stay with my dad and Beatrice.”
Buck sat down hard on the side of the bed. “You can sort your thoughts out here,” he said. “You don’t have to be in another part of the country—especially not there.”
“Like where, Buck? A hotel? How long do you think it would be before the media would be all over me if I were to check into a hotel? Or maybe the condominium in Vail? Same thing and you know it.”
“Yeah, but Tallulah?” He looked incredulous.
“My dad will welcome me. And Beatrice, too, I hope. I’ve called and made arrangements. It’s done, Buck.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes, just like that.”
He got up abruptly, forgetting his knee, then swore when it almost folded beneath him. Grabbing a single crutch, he glared at her. “This is bullshit, Anne! I’m up to my ass in trouble with the Jacks. I’m grounded with this damn knee for who knows how long and now my wife ups and leaves. Add that to the scandal of Casey dying at my house and the gossips will have a field day.”
“Well, too bad, Buck. I’m dealing with some pretty difficult stuff myself, in case you haven’t noticed. Your trouble with the Jacks is temporary—you’re too valuable to be cut and your knee will heal. The thing with Casey will eventually fade away, too.” She straightened then and looked him squarely in the face. “But my baby is gone forever.”
“I tell you, we can work this thing out here, Anne. You don’t have to go to Tallulah.”
“That would save you the embarrassment of explaining my disappearance, wouldn’t it? And it’s understandable for you to assume I’d fall in with what you want since before, when we’ve come to these bumps in the road, I’ve always been the one to compromise. Well, I’m not compromising this time, Buck. I need this time and I’m taking it.”
“Do you realize what’s at stake here? We could lose everything we’ve worked for all these years.”
“Everything you’ve worked for.”
“For God’s sake, Anne, be reasonable.”
“Reasonable.” She looked at him, shaking her head. “You know what? I don’t feel like being reasonable. I’ve had it with the struggle, the ego stuff, th
e loneliness when you travel and I’m home alone. I haven’t been able to pursue a career because we’ve never been in one place long enough. I don’t expect you to understand because I’ve been remiss in telling you, and that’s my fault. I’m sorry, Buck, but my mind is made up.”
With the suitcase now packed, she got ready to lift it off the bed, but he stopped her with a hand on it. “At least wait a few days. Christ, you just went through an ordeal losing the baby and the accident. You just got out of the hospital.”
“Meaning you think I’m overreacting because my hormones are in an uproar.” She smiled bitterly. “Wrong. My hormones probably are in an uproar, but I know exactly who I am and what I’m doing. And if you don’t like the real me, then for sure our marriage is over.”
She tugged the handle out of his grasp and walked to the door. Hampered by his crutches, it took him a moment to get going. “I’m driving myself to the airport,” she told him as she reached the stairs. “I’ll leave a message on your voice mail telling you where to send someone to pick up my car.”
Three
As if to challenge Anne’s decision about leaving Buck, the weather turned bad and she had to spend several hours in the airport waiting for her flight to depart. By the time she got off the plane in Memphis, she’d had too much time to think, but not enough to change her mind.
She caught the first glimpse of her father and Beatrice at Baggage Claim before they spotted her. Franklin Marsh was a tall man, lean and gangly. Anne’s nose barely came to the third button on his shirt, an Oxford button-down that appeared almost a size too large. As was the tan corduroy jacket he wore. He looked exactly what he was—an academic and an author/journalist whose thoughts were often engaged elsewhere.
With tears clogging her throat, she let herself be folded into his embrace. “Don’t ask,” she whispered, guessing that she must look ready to splinter into a thousand pieces. He held her for a long moment, sensing that she needed it, just as he’d done countless times when she was a child.
“Thanks for coming to meet me, Dad,” she managed to say with a little sniff.
He made a tsk-ing sound. “And wouldn’t I go to the moon to meet my Annie-girl. How are you, love?”
“I’m okay.” Swallowing a lump in her throat, she looked beyond her father and met the anxious blue eyes of her stepmother. “Beatrice. I’ve kept you away from your shop today, haven’t I?”
“A welcome break,” Beatrice said, holding out her arms. “Is there a hug for me, too?”
Her stepmother was about Anne’s height, an attractive woman whose once-dark hair styled in a casual pageboy was rapidly turning gray. The long sweater she wore over a gauzy tiered skirt made her look exactly what she was—an aging child of the sixties. Anne stepped naturally into a warm embrace that made her throat go tight, and her doubts about her welcome disappeared.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” Beatrice said in her ear. Pulling back, she studied Anne’s face intently.
Anne brought both hands to her cheeks. “Is my makeup a mess? I know I look like something the cat dragged in.”
Beatrice shook her head, smiling. “Was I staring? If so, it’s just to check that you’re as lovely as I remembered on my wedding day.”
Again, to her consternation, Anne felt herself on the verge of tears, but somehow managed a laugh. “I guess that means I don’t look as bedraggled as I feel.” They’d met only a year ago. And once Anne got over the shock of the idea of her father remarrying, she’d liked his new wife from the start. “And thanks for being so gracious about having me. You must think I’ve got some nerve just calling and saying I’m on my way without giving you any notice.”
“You don’t have to give notice to visit us, Anne…ever.”
“That’s nice of you to say, but it has to be an inconvenience.”
“Inconvenience?” Franklin, watching them with a smile, spoke up. “What kind of nonsense is that? I wish you’d stay a month.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Dad,” she said dryly.
An hour later, as they exited Interstate 55, the gently rolling terrain of north Mississippi abruptly changed to the stark flatness of the Delta. Now in early April the land lay fallow, but in high summer the fields turned lush and green with cotton plants and in August the bolls swelled in the scorching Mississippi sun until they finally burst. Everything that had been green turned suddenly, dramatically, to snowy white. It still seemed so different to Anne, reared in New England where winters were long and gray and cold and summers all too brief.
As they neared the city limits of the town, she read a signing proclaiming Tallulah as the proud hometown of Buck Whitaker. It was a reminder that, to the folks in Tallulah, Buck was a bigger-than-life hero. At the same time, she was reminded that his celebrity would make it hard for her to keep a low profile while she was here.
Another mile and she noticed a profusion of political signs. To her surprise, the biggest and most prominent featured Buck’s brother, Pearce. “I didn’t know Pearce was involved in a political campaign.”
“No?” Franklin frowned. “I would have thought he’d contact Buck for an endorsement. The state senate is turning out to be a horse race and Buck’s name would definitely be an asset to Pearce.”
“His opponent is giving him a run for his money,” Beatrice said, “but in the end I don’t see how anyone can beat a Whitaker.” Franklin chuckled. “My wife is supporting the opposition.”
“And who are you supporting, Dad?”
“The Spectator remains neutral,” he said piously. “So far.”
Beatrice gave Anne a knowing smile. “I’ll win him over yet.”
“All it would take for Pearce to win, with or without an endorsement from the Spectator,” Franklin said, as they approached a huge billboard picturing Buck in pitcher’s stance, “is an endorsement from Buck.”
“I forget how big Buck’s name is in this town,” Anne said, now looking at his face painted on the side of the high school gym.
“It’s understandable when you consider the odds of a town this size producing a world-class athlete,” Franklin replied.
“I guess they’ve forgotten how long it took before he was recognized as world-class,” she remarked.
On her first visit to Belle Pointe just before their wedding, Buck had still been stuck in the minor leagues, frustrated and keenly ambitious, but it had not mattered to Anne whether he ever made it into the pro ranks. She was that much in love with him. What did matter was that he spent so little time with his family. His father had died before they ever met, but his mother and Pearce, his older brother, were in Tallulah. Although Buck harbored resentment and hurt over things that had happened after his father died, she wondered if he hadn’t overreacted. People said things, did things, in the wake of a family trauma that could be worked out. To Anne, it seemed a shame to simply withdraw from his family when he had such an interesting heritage.
“There’s the turn to Belle Pointe,” Franklin said now, as they approached the ornate iron gate. “Won’t be long before folks around here find out you’re back for a visit. They’ll wonder where Buck is. What’s your plan to deal with that?”
“I don’t have a plan,” she said, gazing at the house where Buck was born. Stretching on all sides were endless cotton fields, but the house itself was surrounded by shade trees, mostly oak, sycamore and the unique and stately magnolia. Brightening the grounds nearer the house were hot-pink azaleas in full bloom.
“It is a fantastic sight, isn’t it?” Beatrice said, following her gaze.
“Yes.” She knew she would never forget her first look at Belle Pointe. It was high summer when Buck took her to meet his family. They’d driven past miles of lush cotton fields and suddenly there it was, an antebellum gem of classic Greek Revival design. She’d gazed enthralled, thinking the place looked like something out of Gone with the Wind, a white pearl in a green sea.
Franklin slowed the car. “When I see it, I sometimes get a feeling that t
he clock at Belle Pointe stopped somewhere in the nineteenth century. Same thing with a few other landowners around here as well. How they’ve managed to hold on to such a unique lifestyle is truly remarkable.”
“Yes, remarkable,” Anne murmured, studying a tall water tower painted like a cotton boll. “I thought the same thing myself when I first saw Belle Pointe.”
“Of course, most of the original plantations were divided up as families came on hard times. Beatrice can tell you something about that.”
“My daddy lost our land when it was sold for back taxes,” she explained at Anne’s puzzled look.
“Oh, no,” Anne murmured.
“He was a very stubborn man,” Beatrice said.
“I’ll say.” With Belle Pointe behind them now, Franklin picked up speed. Anne guessed there was a story there, but neither offered more details.
“On the other hand,” Beatrice said, “the Whitakers have managed to hold on to Belle Point for five generations. They’ve even added to the original acreage. And with your mother-in-law managing things, that’s not likely to change—at least not in this lifetime.”
Anne welcomed any scrap of information about Victoria Whitaker. From the start, she’d been a bit in awe of Buck’s mother. “Buck doesn’t talk much about Belle Pointe…or his family, so while I’m here I’m going to try to get better acquainted.”
“The Spectator’s archives are a good place to start,” Beatrice said. “With your journalism background, you should feel right at home poking around down there, right, Franklin?”
He slowed as a farm vehicle pulled onto the road in front of him. “More than poking around in those dusty old shelves, I’d love to have you working right alongside me. I could use a good journalist.”
She hadn’t thought about going to work. She hadn’t thought about anything much beyond getting away. At the sound of an airplane, she turned her gaze skyward and watched a crop-duster preparing to land at a small airfield. Another mile or two and they would be at Tallulah’s town square, which was about all the downtown amounted to.
